Selfies Kill More People Than Shark Attacks

HughPickens.com writes: The Independent reports that so far this year more people have died while trying to take a 'selfie' than from shark attacks. So far, 12 people have lost their life while trying to take a photo of themselves but the number of people who have died as a result of a shark attack was only eight. Some recent selfie-fatalities: A 66-year-old tourist from Japan recently died after falling down some stairs while trying to take a photo at the Taj Mahal in India, a Mississippi woman was gored to death by a bison while visiting Yellowstone National Park, and in August a man trying to take a selfie was gored to death during a running of the bulls in Villaseca de la Sagra, Spain. Some groups have been trying to get on top of the wave. In June Disney banned selfie sticks in its amusement parks. And foreseeing the selfie crisis in a very specific way, New York State passed a bill in June 2014 to prohibit people from having their photo taken (or taking it themselves) while "hugging, patting or otherwise touching tigers."

Comments

Bullshit

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

A shark attack is a direct mechanism of death — a thing that produces actual, physical harm. A selfie, on the other hand, is what health statisticians might classify as an “underlying mechanism” or an “intermediate mechanism,” depending on the exact circumstances: a thing that’s involved in, and maybe precipitates, an accident, but doesn’t actually cause any physical harm. (Unless your phone electrocutes you or something, but that’s a different situation.)

That may seem like a small distinction, but it’s actually pretty huge. Let’s turn to the World Health Organization to see how it breaks down the issue. WHO gives the example of a woman tripping over something on the floor and hitting her head on the counter; you’d never say that the thing on the floor killed her — that’s just the underlying mechanism. (Also, stupid.) The direct mechanism was hitting her head, just as in most “selfie deaths,” the direct mechanism is being struck by a car, falling down, what have you.

We could, for the sake of argument, compare the number of deaths from falling down the stairs to the number of deaths from shark attacks. Or we could compare the number of deaths while taking selfies to the number of deaths while swimming in the ocean.

But if we did that, we’d come to the boring conclusion that selfie-related deaths are total anomalies: a microscopic sliver of the big ole Death pie chart, scarcely even worth mentioning.

Re:It's called Natural Selection

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, camel-case is the correct usage. The term was coined by an old gaming magazine called GamePro, and that's how they wrote it.

Re: Looks like death by being gored..

[Anonymous Coward]

This is probably the best comment here